Campaign to reinstate Dr Vivienne Lyfar-Cissé

Campaigners in Brighton are calling for the immediate reinstatement of race campaigner Vivienne Lyfar-Cisse.

Lyfar-Cisse has been unrelenting in highlighting race disparities within the Sussex University Hospitals (BSUH) NHS Trust, and yet it is with some irony that one of the key reasons she’s been sacked is said to be a misconduct against another ‘BME’ employee. That employee who shall not be named is a white American. Lyfar-Cisse vigorously denies the case and has argued that the motivation for her dismissal is because she has highlighted persistent race inequality within the Trust.

The case is particularly troubling because the institutional issues that Lyfar- Cisse raises within the Trust seem to have been ignored, but every remark that she has made has been overly scrutinised and, it is argued, manipulated to get her out.

If this is true then what confidence can BME staff and patients have when highlighting race inequality within the Trust, particularly if they are not only ignored but disproportionate scrutiny will be on focused on every utterance they make?